Is Our Leaders Learning?
By Chris Martin on February 21, 2009 at 11:45 AM in Current Affairs
I don’t have the same experience or smarts as Paul Krugman, but I too have learned a similar lesson:
The most valuable lesson I learned from the year I spent in Washington (1982-1983, on the staff of the Council of Economic advisers . . . ) was the extent to which senior government figures have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.
In 2006 I met a Congressional candidate who was being heavily pushed by his/her Party’s congressional committee. Since the person was looking for endorsements and campaign volunteers, I felt it incumbent to at least ask a few questions.
One of the questions I asked was very simple: What Congressional committee or committees would you like to be part of? This is a standard question I ask candidates because it gives me an idea of what their priorities would be. It also gives me clues as to their understanding of the legislative process. The answer I received from this candidate was underwhelming, to say the least: he didn’t know. Furthermore, a little bit of insight was revealed, perhaps accidentally. The person said that the way Congress works, it doesn’t really matter what most representatives think. There are a handful of “experts” who the rest of Congress listens to. Perhaps this explains why so few congresscritters actually read an entire bill, start to finish.
I have another little anecdote. I helped to organize a meeting between a group of college students and a former cabinet secretary. Several of us came up with a rather comprehensive list of questions which I felt were crude and perhaps not the most in depth and knowledgeable. To my surprise, the Secretary mentioned that he had been meeting with congresspersons for years and been involved in many committee hearings and that our questions were as good or better than most of his meetings with the nation’s leaders. At the time I took it as a hyperbolic and polite gesture. Having met candidates and current office holders since then suggests that the Secretary was probably being genuine.
One of the criticisms of Bush was that he lacked intellectual curiosity. While I find that to be a legitimate criticism, the lack of intellectual curiosity is probably more widespread than most of us would like to admit. I notice a lot amongst Congress and in the media punditocracy the ability to regurgitate talking points, but often there is little evidence of a deep understanding of the issues beyond their second hand opinions.
Why does this bother me? Well, the country seems to have been transformed into a permanent campaign mode, where the ability to campaign has dramatically outweighed expertise and intellectual curiosity. The need to raise incredible amounts of money and the BS that goes along with campaigns prevents a lot of people who should be in office from running for office at all. This means that we have a surplus of folks who can spew talking points, but a shortage of people who are as deeply critical as I’d like to see.
by Ronald Scott
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